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"The Dybbuk"
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Seen Recently -
Prayer for My Enemy at Playwrights Horizons
Becky Shaw at 2nd Stage Theatre
The Sound and The Fury at NYTW
(Actually, I'm not so sure that I like Faulkner, however Elevator Repair Service won me over with their experimental, text centered and quite surprising adaptation of the novel. I loved watching actors switch characters, characters switch actors, and narrators change. The production was fast paced and quite fascinating. I also appreciated the use of projected text and multitasking of household objects as trees and natural landscapes. A really nice production.)
Len, Asleep In Vinyl at 2st Uptown
(Very strange, with well portrayed male characters).
Liberty City at NYTW
(April Yvette Thompson and Jessica Blank create a visceral and engrossing one-woman show (acted by Thompson) of Thompson's childhood and coming of age in the African-American and multi-racial setting of Liberty City, Florida. As the child of African-American and Cuban/Bahaman social activists in the political turmoil of this area in the 70s and 80s, April saw a lot of unexpected pairings and conflicts between a variety of people and the actress brings these experiences to the stage with an ear for language and a gift for embodiment of characters. In a post show talkback, Blank and Thompson discussed their complex processes of storytelling, readings and transcriptions, as well as the unusual verse format of the script itself - parsed as an epic poem, the script breaks at the breathing points rather than following standard script format.
More info at: Libertycityplay.com
Aprilyvettethompson.com
- Dead Man's Cell Phone at Playwrights Horizons
(Mary-Louise Parker and the rest of the cast gave a wonderful performance of an unfortunately poorly written new play by Sarah Ruhl. The action lacked a coherent direction and trajectory, aimlessly shifting between realism and camp as characters behaved without discernible cause. Disappointing considering Ruhl's reputation and the strength of the cast.)
- Tartuffe at Yale Rep
(What is it with these videographers all over the Moliere? I have to say I like it and simultaneously I feel as though I should question the authenticity of live filming during plays that were written before film started moving. Very multimedia and it gives theater new directions (literally, since actors can both turn their backs to the audience and be fully seen). The play was well staged, well acted, and fun to watch. I really enjoyed it, even from the last row).
- Pumpgirl at MTC
(Very powerful at times, and yet too slow. The three way monologue doesn't really work for me as a structure. I'm also not quite sure what they were doing with the stage - the tumbleweed under glass effect was fascinating, but how does that relate to the play?).
- Cry Havoc at Abingdon
(Ok, so I read scripts for them, so I'm not totally impartial, but I this was good theater - very tight, suspenseful, well acted. The final monologue could have been a bit shorter, but otherwise, everything from the middle eastern set design to the sense of claustrophobia and implosion (a la Twelve Angry Men / Sidney Lumet) just worked.)
- The Goldman Project at Abingdon
(This play constructs a whole world (in fact several worlds) with only three characters. It deals with holocaust themes in a new and different way, influenced by individual testimony and the Spielberg project of gathering testimonials from survivors. As individual as it is universal, The Goldman Project is simply good drama - intimate, perfectly timed and embodied by the actors as though they are living it. The play manages to create a compelling drama of family secrets and failed romantic liasons while dealing with Holocaust themes - very impressive.
At a post show discussion, the playwright, Staci Swedeen, said she was of Swedish, not Jewish descent, and explained that much of the material was based on her friendship with a friend's mother who survived the holocaust. One of the actresses spoke Yiddish as a first language, an actor had experience in the Yiddish Folksbiene Theater, and the other actress told us that her mother, a French Jew, hid in the South of France during the Holocaust. )
- Peter and Jerry at 2st
(Why? Why would Albee try to tack anything on to The Zoo Story? I have to say that the second part of Peter and Jerry, the mostly unmodified text of the original play was everything it could be. Fantastically off balance and lurching, with the ending that slaps you in the face. Director Pam MacKinnon, who was on site for an audience discussion, really had good instincts for bringing out the parallels between the two sections. I just couldn't buy the dialogue between Peter and his wife, particularly on the wife's end. Some of the things she said about female circumcision and the other random topics they talked about just didn't sound like they would come from a woman talking to her husband, or from anyone in conversation. Their conversation managed to be both not disturbing enough and disturbing in its randomness. The Zoo Story comes to a sharp point at the end (literally and figuratively). Two strangers become intimate. Homelife, the first part of Peter and Jerry, lacks the point at the end, and portrays two people who act as though they have never met before, despite having two children and years of marriage. They neither become closer nor more estranged over the course of their conversation. It simply wasn't a good parallel to the second half, sounded unnatural, and didn't go anywhere. Why, Albee, why?)
- The Misanthrope at NYTW
(Wow! Experimental in a complementary way. I wanted to see it again. The translation from the French was fantastic. The language was absolutely beautiful and perfectly phrased. The actors had dead on timing - I could see the formalist poetry come to life as though it was every day dialogue. The set was bizarre and fantastic without distracting from the action. The use of video (with time delay, in webcam style) allowed us to "see" backstage and outside on the street. Characters could sit at unusual angles or with their backs to the audience while their facial expressions flickered on screen. Somehow the camera people blended into the scenery. Moliere's characters don't give off warmth, but this production was so well executed in every detail and technicality that the breathlessness of it carried me along through the whole performance.)
- The Receptionist at MTC
(Ugh. It completely lacks suspense! The characters are all annoying or dislikeable, without being compellingly so. It never becomes clear what the characters really do, or why we should care. The title character never actually behaves as a receptionist and the other characters all seem equally incompetent at their jobs (and at their lives!) Think "1984" without George Orwell. The set is complicated, but doesn't really do anything. It moves around at the very end in a lame sort of way).
-Sylvia
(very ambitious, beautifully filmed, for condensing the story, does quite a good job. Love Paltrow & her mother as Sylvia and Aurelia!)
-Thirteen
(Not nearly as shocking as it promises to be, but has some really fun film work and it's enjoyable to watch. Evan Rachel Wood is believable in the lead role.)
-Scarcityat Atlantic Theater Co.
(Fantastic acting, very believable as middle of nowhere town. Lacks strong direction and a real conclusion at the end - disappointing considering the acting talent of the cast).
-Election Day at 2st Theatre
(Really clever, laugh out loud funny the entire time, but clever funny, with dead on characterizations of political and personal motivations and agendas. A must see.)
-Victoria Cross (film, 1916, Sessue Hayakawa)
-Children of a Lesser God (film)
-Becoming Jane
(Beautifully done, great actors doing their best work. Has an authentic feel to it, and compelling to watch, with amusing references to other films about Jane Austen and her characters.)
Read Lately -Typical American by Gish Jen
-Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
(Oh my god, someone wrote a book about my childhood and adolescence. This book is so much fun. I couldn't put it down. I read it again. Gish Jen creates such characters! They're so much like people I grew up with. The way she writes is so exquisitely formed - the way she can write so smoothly that you hardly notice the bite to what she's saying. A modern Jane Austen, but both sweeter on the surface and sharper on the undertone. Some of the best writing I've ever read. Such perfect phrasing and it sounds so natural. Fantastic stuff!)
-Beirut Blues by Hanan Al-Shaykh
(The Lebanese version of Michael Sheli / My Michael - a woman who is the city of Beirut and embodies all of its beauty and chaos, its memory and its daily life. Beautifully written and a pleasure to read. So much like Amos Oz' Hannah who lives and breathes Jerusalem.)
- Kafka's Parables
- Lots of scripts for Abingdon
- Pink Magazine
- West Bank Story
- Dara Horn's The World to Come and In The Image
(I loved The World to Come - it brought in all kinds of Jewish texts and art forms. It had suspense and fantastic storytelling. Really a fun book in an intellectual but not snobbish way. I met the author once at a Yiddish conference where she talked about one of the historical figures who turns up in the book. )